Various plastic, glass, and membrane materials have historically been used to bind chemical and biological molecules for use in various analytic methods such as ELISA, Western blotting, and hybridizations.
These materials are limited by their relatively low loading potential, and by their non-porous nature.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,951,295 (issued Sep. 14, 1999) describes ceramic fused fiber enhanced dental materials, and methods for their preparation. Fused-fibrous material was taught comprising from about 1% to about 50% by weight alumina, from about 50% to about 98% silica, and from about 1% to about 5% by weight boron.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,964,745 (issued Oct. 12, 1999) describes an implantable system for bone or vascular tissue. The system comprises porous linked fibrous biomaterial manufactured from nonwoven, randomly-oriented fibers linked together using a fusion source at a plurality of cross-points into a porous structure, said biomaterial having a plurality of voids of a predetermined mean void size effective for stimulating angiogenesis in said biomaterial from the tissue or bone.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,621,035 (issued Apr. 15, 1997) describes filler compositions and ceramic enhanced dental materials. The preferred embodiment of the filler composition and the ceramic dental restorative material is comprised of about 22% by weight alumina, about 78% by weight silica, about 2% by weight silicon carbide, and about 2.85% by weight boron nitride with less than 1% cristobalite contamination.
Porous materials have been suggested by Yasukawa et al. (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,629,186 and 5,780,281). A composite was prepared from silica and/or alumina fibers with added boron nitride. The composites were suggested as being useful for cell cultures, implants, and chromatography matrices.
There exists a need for materials which bind chemical and biological molecules while having improved surface properties.